Archive for the ‘Wi-Max’ category

Verizon plans on a full deployment of LTE by 2010, utilizing the newly acquired 700 mHz spectrum. Trials are already under way, with 3 markets set to start real-life tests sometime in the second half of this year.

No pricing plans were set, and no specifics were mentioned of actual data download speeds; rather, Verizon CTO Richard Lynch would only say that the real speeds would not be known until the real-world tests are made. Peak trial speeds have been set at 60 Mbps so far. Two lucky to-be-named cities will be recipients of the 4G action — which sounds suspiciously similar to Sprint and Clearwire’s current WiMAX situation — where the company will get a better sense of the data rates commercial users can expect.

From the other hand AT&T is in no hurry to deploy LTE since it is very careful on how it deploys HSPA, which is slow to evolve enough as it is. AT&T will observe Verizon’s rollout of LTE and learn from any mistakes made from it, so as to avoid making the same mistakes on its own rollout.

Verizon Wireless CTO Dick Lynch said the operator expects to have Long Term Evolution technology in service somewhere in the U.S. by December 2009. Lynch, speaking at Cisco Systems’ C-Scape conference in San Jose, also said Verizon will offer femtocells, which will likely include WiFi as an added feature, shortly after introducing LTE.

“A femtocell of LTE or an access point of WiFi is a really critical component of the way customers want their broadband delivered,” Lynch said.

Verizon’s move represents an aggressive timeframe for LTE, which has largely been understood to hit the market in 2010. However, speakers at this week’s LTE America’s conference indicated they were skeptical that a 2010 LTE launch was attainable, according to an article in RCR News. LTE was supposed to be standardized by the end of this year, but the date has now been pushed to March.

Qualcomm has also recently issued an aggressive timeline for releasing engineering samples of its LTE/HSPA+ device modem. It is trying for the second quarter of 2009. The company, however, cautioned commercial availability of of the MDM9000 “still depends on a number of very uncertain factors, many of which are dependent on mobile network operators’ plans and investment priorities about how and when to roll out this next stage of wireless technology,” said Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president and general manager for Qualcomm Europe, speaking at the company’s inaugural European Innovation Summit last week.

Why the rush for Verizon? Ken Hyers, analyst with Technology Business Research, said in a recent interview that Verizon desires to push aggressively with LTE because it’s running out of data capacity on its CDMA EVDO network and must compete with higher speed HSPA+ AT&T Wireless is rolling out before its own LTE launch.

“The operator’s entire reputation is built around network quality and coverage and having the best network,” Hyers said. Verizon “will have to continue increasing data capacity.”

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel announced today that they have completed the transaction to combine their next-generation wireless Internet businesses. With the closing, Sprint contributed all of its 2.5 GHz spectrum and its WiMAX-related assets, including its XOHM business, to Clearwire. In addition, Clearwire has received a $3.2 Billion cash investment from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks.

The transaction with Sprint and the new cash investment were completed on the terms originally announced on May 7, 2008. The new company retains the name Clearwire and remains headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. The deal, announced in May, will provide funding for Sprint and Clearwire to build the network and allow cable providers to offer wireless services to help them compete with rivals AT&T and Verizon. It will use Sprint’s existing broadcast wireless towers and its wired fiber network.

On Monday, December 1, 2008, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (7 a.m. Pacific Time), Clearwire will hold a conference call for press and industry analysts to share its perspective and provide other details about the new company.

Sprint, which had earlier said they’d spend some $5 billion by 2010 building their WiMAX network across the United States, will now own about 51 percent of the new company. Sprint’s new partners will invest some $3 billion. Clearwire will own about 27 percent. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Google and Bright House will get a combined 22 percent.

The partners have put the value of the deal at $12 billion, a figure that includes radio spectrum and equipment provided by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, and the $3.2 billion invested by the partners.

Clearwire will be the only company allowed to sell 4G access as a standalone service, according to Sprint CTO Berry West. Sprint will essentially access the network as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), selling combined 3G and 4G access plans. Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff told the Seattle Times that, ultimately,the company could “get to 20,000 or 30,000 employees” nationally. Clearwire has about 2,000 employees now, including 350 to 400 at its Kirkland headquarters. Sprint has about 700 in its WiMax unit, including a research and development group in Herndon, Va.

Clearwire’s next rollout is expected to be in Portland, Oregon, early next year, where the company has been testing the system with partner Intel for the last year.

Motorola announced this week that the company has deployed its first WiMAX trial network for Vietnam Datacommunications Company (VDC), a member company of the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), the largest Internet service provider (ISP) in Vietnam.

The network allows VDC to test next-generation wireless broadband services in major cities of Vietnam, the company said.

The launch of the WiMAX service follows the signing of an agreement between Motorola and VDC to commence a technical and commercial WiMAX trial in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City last year. Under the agreement, Motorola will install WiMAX Diversity Access Points and more than 100 customer premises equipment (CPE) in the nation’s two largest cities.

Motorola WiMAX 802.16e technology allows more people across the country access to faster Internet connections and other advanced telecom services, contributing to the country’s economic growth.
“Vietnam Datacommunications Company gains competitive advantages by being a pioneer in trialing and launching new WiMAX services, which will allow us to capture market opportunities in the next generation wireless broadband space,” Mr. Vu Hoang Lien, CEO, VDC.

As the WiMAX world is finding out, market size and momentum tend to win over time, even when there is a perceived technological advantage.

A new report forecasts that by 2013 WiMAX will have 103 million subscribers–unfortunately HSPA will have more than one billion users in the same timescale. In an accurate summing up of the situation facing WiMAX, Mike Roberts, author of the Informa report on WiMAX, describes the situation as ‘the best of times and the worst of times’ for the broadband technology. The last year has seen WiMAX pass a number of key milestones including product certification, the launch of WiMAX services by major operators and the introduction of WiMAX notebooks and other devices.

WiMAX is also playing a key role in major emerging markets such as India where it will account for 24 per cent of total broadband subscribers by 2013. However, during the same period, HSDPA has become a runaway success with operators in major markets worldwide deploying the broadband technology. There is some good news for WiMAX in the longer term. Although major operators including China Mobile have fully committed to LTE the earliest the fourth generation technology can begin deployment is 2010 and that is likely to slip by at least two years. Given that WiMAX will be the leading OFDMA technology by 2013 it should be able to give the nascent LTE a run for its money in some regions.

While Clearwire still isn’t revealing the details of its WiMAX rollout plan, reports Telephony Magazine, CEO of New Clearwire, Ben Wolff, said that will come after the Sprint deal closes. That will probably be after the stockholder meeting on November 20th.
Clearwire’s trial in Portland—its first planned market launch—is now hosting 200 friendly users. In December, Clearwire will begin to allow commercial customers on the network, but unlike Sprint, Clearwire won’t be launching any commercial networks this year.

Portland will commercially launch in the beginning of 2009, followed by Las Vegas, Atlanta and Grand Rapids, Mich., according to Telephony. Sprint has already launched Xohm commercially in Baltimore and has promised to bring Washington, D.C., and Chicago online by the end of the year.

How much transmit power do WiMAX nets need? Designers must find the optimal balance between high transmit power and low power consumption to ensure robust links, high data rates and good range for WiMAX services.
A typical WiMAX basestation transmits at power levels of approximately +43 dBm (20 W), and the mobile station typically transmits at +23 dBm (200 mW). There is a large difference between downlink power and uplink power. While a mobile can easily receive transmissions from a basestation, the mobile’s low transmit power makes it difficult for the basestation to hear it, Wireless Net DesignLine, explain.
One technique to address the link imbalance is adaptive modulation. In this case, the mobile transmits using a lower order modulation compared with the basestation. For example, the mobile could transmit QPSK or 16QAM signals, while the basestation transmits using 64QAM.

Another way to combat this mismatch is with a technique called subchannelization. In effect, each mobile concentrates its power over a subset of all available subchannels, and the other subcarriers are simultaneously made available to other users.

Networks are currently being deployed specifying that the minimum transmit power is +23 dBm. Each user who enters a network transmitting at powers greater than +23 dBm increases overall network efficiency. However, delivering higher transmit powers comes at a cost to power consumption.

The Mobile WiMAX network will cover 120-140 million people in the U.S. by year-end 2010. If those people are using Android devices, Google will indeed become a force in the market, although still behind Symbian,Windows Mobile and Apple’s iPhone.

Apple, Research In Motion and Google are duking it out for consumers’ smartphone dollars this fall. But Time Warner’s AOL has just landed a giant contract to push Google’s G1 phone for the next two days through AOL’sPlatform-A ad network. It has agreed to buy a billion impressions today and tomorrow, reports AdAge.

Practical Mobile WiMAX devices in small form factors may be a year off, say industry insiders. Intel Moorestown should enable practical battery life with integrated Wi-Fi/WiMAX chips.

LTE operators like femtocells because the cost of the broadband infrastructure can be shifted to end users. Part of the new Clearwire deal calls for 5 MHz of spectrum to be set aside solely for WiMax femtocells. Perhaps ‘free’ whitespace femtocells, in the tv band, will create new business models for end users and municipalities.